An embedded universal integrated circuit card (embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card, eUICC) is a universal integrated circuit card (Universal Integrated Circuit Card, UICC) embedded in a terminal device. A main difference between the UICC and the eUICC is as follows: A profile used to access a carrier network is written into the UICC during production, and after delivery, the profile on the UICC cannot be changed. A profile used to access any carrier network may not be written into the eUICC during production, and after delivery, a user can make a contract with a carrier according to the user's need and write a downloaded profile of a network of the carrier into the eUICC. The UICC and the eUICC each may include a plurality of communications applications, for example, a subscriber identity module (Subscriber Identity Module, SIM) application, a user identity module (User Identity Module, UIM) application, and a universal subscriber identity module (Universal Subscriber Identity Module, USIM) application. After initialization of a card (a UICC or an eUICC) is completed and a profile on the card is enabled, the card can be used to access a carrier network corresponding to the enabled profile.
Usually, an initialization process of the UICC mainly includes processes such as activation of the UICC, selection of a communications application, and initialization of the communications application. However, it is found in practice that there may be no communications application during an initialization process of the eUICC. To be specific, there is no enabled profile, used to access a carrier network, on the eUICC. In this case, a modem in the terminal device may consider the eUICC as an invalid card and therefore terminate a session between the terminal device and the eUICC.